This has been a great thread-- I've really enjoyed the posts. Like Mark's, above.

On Ebay, I just ordered four copies of Mad from the original 1952 series. I might get a few more from 1954, if I can find some in good condition, but not so good they are for collectors willing to spend a hundred bucks, and more, an issue. I'm not interested in collecting. I just want to be able, now and then, to pick up a copy and read through, maybe with a single malt and a cigar.

I know Don Martin's drawings, no matter what the text, will give me a good laugh.

All of MAD’s caricaturists were outstanding, but the very best was Mort Drucker. He could conjure up a famous person’s expressions with a pen like nobody else.

Having been a rabid fan for years, I did a report on Mad Magazine for and English class my junior or senior year in high school (this would have been 1969-1970).

One interesting fact that I dug up in my research is that, in the post-war period 1945-1970, only two startup magazines of that period survived to that point: Mad and Playboy.

Wow - the world really is ending.

Remember Al Jaffee's folding page - the last page? You can actually buy the collection on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/exec/ob...11872858/braipick-20

I have back issues, and even paperback books they made that I still look through.
I thought it was bad when Far Side stopped, or Calvin & Hobbes, but this is too much.

quote:

Originally posted by snoris:
All of MAD’s caricaturists were outstanding, but the very best was Mort Drucker. He could conjure up a famous person’s expressions with a pen like nobody else.

Really a genius.

https://www.pinterest.com/moos...art-of-mort-drucker/

(But he didn't make me almost pee my pants like Don Martin did.)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: justjoe,

I believe the first Yiddish word I ever saw was “verschluggene”.
And I agree with the original post:
It IS crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide!
Sweet memories of youthful nerdism, decades before nerds became cool.

A few other magazines tried to imitate, but could not duplicate, Mad. The closest thing to a competitor was Cracked. Others, like Sick and Crazy, didn't last long.

I loved Bill Gaines' MAD Magazine as a kid, especially the movie and television satires by Mort Drucker, and Dick Debartolo. Great stable of classic artists: Harvey Kurtzman, Dave Berg, Don Martin, Jack Davis, Wally Wood, Drew Friedman, and Sergio Aragones. I always thought, that working as an artist for MAD Magazine would be the coolest job in the world! Example of Drew Friedman's work:

I had one grunch, but the eggplant over there.

quote:

Originally posted by drtenb330:
Remember Al Jaffee's folding page - the last page?

He is still rocking along above ground at age 98

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jaffee

In 2010, Jaffee described the earliest Fold-Ins:

I thought to myself ... now it's folded in and I've got to have something on the left side here, and something right side here. And the only thing that popped into my head was that Elizabeth Taylor had just dumped Eddie Fisher and was carrying on with Richard Burton. So I had Elizabeth Taylor kissing Richard Burton, and a cop is holding the crowd back – and just for the fun of it I put Eddie Fisher being trampled by the crowd. What a cruel thing to do! And then, when you fold it in, she's moving on from Richard Burton and kissing the next guy in the crowd. It's so simplistic and silly and juvenile! And anyone could have done that!
I showed it to Al Feldstein, and the first thing I said was, "Al, I've got this crazy idea, and you're not going to buy it, because it mutilates the magazine." So I put it in front of him, and the thing about Al was, he liked things that intrigued him. The mechanics of it intrigued him. He said, "You mean, you fold it, like this...? And then...?" He folded it, he unfolded it, he folded it, and then he said, "I like this!" But I said, "Al, it mutilates the magazine." And he said, "Well, I'll have to check it with Bill." He takes it, runs it to Bill's office, and he was there a little while, and he comes back and he says, "We're going to do it! You know what Bill said? Bill said, 'So they mutilate the magazine, and then they'll buy another one to save!'
Four or five weeks later, Al comes over to me and says, "When are you going to do the next Fold-In?" And I said, "I don't have another Fold-In. That was it!" So he said, "Come on, you can come up with something else." I wracked my brain, and the only thing I could come up with was Nixon [whose face was hidden within curtain folds]. That one really set the tone for what the cleverness of the Fold-Ins has to be. It couldn't just be bringing someone from the left to kiss someone on the right."[22]
The Fold-In became one of Mad's signature features, and appeared in almost every issue of the magazine from 1964–2017.[13] A single issue in 1977 was published without a Fold-In (though Jaffee supplied the issue's back cover), and a 1980 issue instead featured a unique double-visual gimmick by Jaffee in which the inside back cover and the outside back cover merged to create a third image when held up to the light. The third-ever Fold-In in 1964 featured a unique diagonal folding design, rather than the standard left-right vertical format. The image revealed the four members of The Beatles becoming bald (and thus losing their popularity).[23]

The Far Side creator Gary Larson described his experience with the Fold-In: "The dilemma was always this: Very slowly and carefully fold the back cover ... without creasing the page and quickly look at the joke. Jaffee's artistry before the folding was so amazing that I suspect I was not alone in not wanting to deface it in any way."[7] In 1972, Jaffee received a Special Features Reuben Award for his Fold-Ins.

quote:

Sergio Aragones

I have a bunch of Groo comics stashed in a box somewhere.

I was a kid. I didn’t know it was high comic art.

IIRC MAD introduced me to the songs of Tom Lehrer. They would do cartoons of hits like...
Mid the sagebrush and the cactus
I’ll watch the fellas practice
Droppin’ bombs white the FBI watches me
I’ll have on my sombrero
And of course I’ll wear a pair’o
Levis over my lead BVD’s